I saw your news spot on the WFSB website about the girls going door to door, and read your blog post. Seems there is a lot of FUD around the situation, and I thought I would let you know that at least one of the students is a great, hard-working, and honest kid. I know because she's my little sister. I'm sure the other two girls are very respectable too, but I don't know them personally. I don't know if you got the chance to talk to any of them in person, but if you didn't, you can find out more about their company here:

Obviously, Wallingford is a tight-knit community, and you are just looking out for your neighbors. I can see where the asking for a place to rent might put some people off, but hundreds of students in their company do this every year all over the country without incident. They have really good products to sell, and they work hard. If you are curious or want to discuss this further, feel free to drop me line.

Over-protective Big Brother,

Steve

Hi Steve,I appreciate you dropping me a note; the problem is the way they handled themselves and I even indicated early on that it might just be “young people who are acting a little quirky” and that wasn’t meant as a slight. I am sure my behavior at 19 was odd to most adults.

The problem here is their approach – they are going into neighborhoods trying to sell (in this case education materials) and at the same time asking about housing.We’ve had over the years in Wallingford and the surrounding areas a number of situations where people profiled homes; who lives there (elderly, single parent, etc) to get a sense of who might be home when and when they might not. A guy casing houses by offering in home estimates for repairs, cleaning out basements, etc is going to have a difficult time because more times than not that man will be turned away. But all I have to do is hire a few young girls and the alarm level goes down on the homeowner especially women that are mothers.

You indicate “hundreds of students in (this) company do this every year all over the country without incident” I can tell you from the responses directly to me (and I have had 30,000 blog hits on my post alone) NO ONE in Wallingford that contacted me ever heard of a practice like this.

If these girls simply said as they approached homeowners “my name is [NAME], I go to the University of [SCHOOLNAME], and I am trying to pay my way through college by selling educational guides from Southwestern Advantage – do you have school age students in the home?” this would have been a non-issue.

Of course now that I have a company name (which they did not volunteer to anyone they approached) I can do some quick look ups online and I hate to say it, it’s not making me think it’s ALL FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) because here is what I can find:

Criticism about the operations of Southwestern Advantage revolves around its recruiting practices and the financial risk to students whose profits from sales do not substantially cover their expenses. Because they are independent contractors, Southwestern Advantage expects students to fully finance their living expenses similar to any other career job. Southwestern Advantage does not pay for expenses like food, gas, or rent. In addition, expenses of the required Sunday meetings with managers are not covered by the company, but by the students themselves. Foreign students in particular carry a major financial burden, as they must pay for their visas and airfare themselves.

Students are taught to indirectly ask if there are other families in the neighborhood who may have small children. Such questions have sometimes been regarded as suspicious, resulting in complaints to local police, close police scrutiny and even an arrest for disorderly conduct. By traveling door to door, students sometimes draw the attention of local law enforcement. Local requirements are reviewed by the company prior to the summer in order to sell products legally, and Southwestern Advantage offers assistance in the event of permit issues. Students are encouraged to leave their cellphones at home to focus on the task at hand, but it is not required.

Look what it says right here as I believe this says it all - Students are taught to indirectly ask if there are other families in the neighborhood who may have small children. Such questions have sometimes been regarded as suspicious, resulting in complaints to local police, close police scrutiny and even an arrest for disorderly conduct. By traveling door to door, students sometimes draw the attention of local law enforcement.

That is exactly what happened here in Wallingford and from the looks of it we “jumped” no more and no less than any of the other communities that have encountered the students.

I would say based on this review of the company (and some others that were much more colorful I might add) the residents here acted accordingly and within their best interests.

I do appreciate that you took the time to reach out to me concerning the news story and I hope you have a good evening.

2 comments:

Hi Jason, we came across your blog and wanted to reach out. Since 1868, Southwestern Advantage has operated our summer Sales & Leadership Program for college & university students, where they run their own independent business selling Southwestern Advantage educational products to families as a way of financing their own personal educational expenses. Students who are interviewed and selected for the program spend a minimum of one week being fully trained up-front on what the expectations of the program are before beginning - including the responsibilities of locating housing. When available, Southwestern Advantage does provide students with assistance in this process through a network of prior host families who have housed students in previous years. Unfortunately, sometimes circumstances prevent prior host families from housing students year after year. Because of this, it is common for students to simply network in their new community face-to-face with homeowners to locate affordable and safe housing for the three months that they will be living and working in the area. By the description of the activity mentioned, the girls had not begun selling the products yet, and as thought by some, were introducing themselves to members of their new community in a networking effort to locate housing for the summer months.

Hope that helps a little. Thanks for being a responsible community member looking out for the well-being of your neighbors.

We are happy to be reached with any questions by calling Southwestern Advantage directly at 888-602-7867. Thank you

About Me

I have been working in the information technology field in one form or the other since 1996. I am currently employed full time at Tallan, Inc. as a Senior Cloud Infrastructure Consultant. I live in Wallingford Connecticut, which is my hometown where I have lived my whole life.

I am married to my wife Renata and a father to four children, three boys - 12 years, 8 years and 7 years old, and one girl aged 10 (by the end of 2016).

I have a passion for technology and I clearly do not sleep much.

I’m always looking for input so drop me a note and let me know what you’d like to see.